Europa Universalis III Chronicles

Paradox Development Studio is back with the fourth installment of the game that defined the Grand Strategy Genre. Europa Universalis IV gives you control of a nation to guide through the years in order to create a dominant global empire. Rule your nation through the centuries, with unparalleled freedom, depth and historical accuracy. True exploration, trade, warfare and diplomacy will be brought to life in this epic title rife with rich strategic and tactical depth.

To the west: the vast, all-powerful expanse of the Holy GabeN Empire. To the East: the notably less powerful, but still somewhat impressive Kingdom of GamersGate. Paradox Interactive have been successfully trading with both for years, but, in a shock bid for independence, they've now launched their own store.

Currently in beta, the Paradox Webshop is selling the publisher/developer's catalogue directly to fans. Well, not quite directly. Rather than providing downloads, users are given a Steam key on purchase. Still, to celebrate the launch, Paradox are offering 55% off the majority of its games.

That means cheap deals on the feudal feuding of Crusader Kings 2, the samurai strategy of Sengoku, the madcap mayhem of Magicka and... lots of other games. Sorry, I couldn't sustain that level of alliteration.

The store's still missing some of Paradox's back catalogue. At a glance, it seems that CK2's trade-based expansion The Republic has yet to dock. But the homepage assures that, "Eventually all our titles will be offered along with lots of other fun goods and surprises."

Magna Mundi, the grandest of grand strategy games, has been cancelled by publishers Paradox Interactive. In a statement put out by Paradox and spotted by RPS, the company explained that they've been unhappy with the game's progress towards release. "We have seen this project drag on and the code we have gotten has not shown significant improvement for many months. Some old and known problems persists and new ones appear with each delivery."

Although it seems the developers disagree, and hope to still release the game. Read on for grand sadness.

Magna Mundi started life as a mod for Europa Universalis 3, but it was popular enough for Paradox to think it had legs as a full game. I saw the game at Paradox's yearly preview event two years ago, and it was absurdly vast in scope, simulating 400 countries over 400 years of history. It looked like the rest of Paradox's line up - which at the time included Pride of Nations and Crusader Kings 2 - combined in to a single game. Magna Mundi was then conspicuous in its absence at the same event this year, suggesting problems have been brewing for a while.

Paradox's Mattias Lilja, the executive producer on Magna Mundi, followed up the original statement with more detail in a forum post. He talks about a lack of trust in the developer and poor leadership of the development team. It's fairly damning.

Developers Universo Virtual would disagree completely, though. They say the game is ready for release, the "cancellation" is bizarre, and that they'll fight Paradox in court. In a post of his own on the Magna Mundi forums, Carlos Gustavo Benavente promises that "the 'cancellation' issue is just a detail on everything that's going to be settled there." This is going to get ugly fast.

Hopefully all parties involve can resolve the issues satisfactorily, because really I just want to play the game. It looked amazing.

Recently, at E3, we got the chance to catch up with the CEO of Paradox Interactive, Fredrik Wester to discuss the company's recent success with Magicka, Mount and Blade and King Arthur. Wester revealed that 90% of Paradox' revenue is now made through digital distribution sales. He describes the company's lack of reliance on retail as "a release," saying that store chains have "not been good for the creative part of the industry."

Wester told us that "this year we’re close to ninety percent of our revenue being digital. Retail sales are like a bonus for us now. We don’t really need retailers any more and that is a release because retailers have not been good for the industry. They’ve not been good for the creative part of the industry, for finding new cool games."

"People complain to publishers that there are only sequels on the market, but that’s because retailers want to see sequels, because they can do their chart diagrams for how things sell and things like that. So one of the things preventing more creative gaming has been the retail challenge."

"I can only say this now because we’re not depending on them, so it’s really relieving to be able to say that."

Wester told us that Steam is Paradox' main partner, followed by Gamersgate. Paradox has recently had big success with Magicka, which as sold more than 600,000 copies since release, and is set to hit a million sales before the end of the year. The entire Paradox catalogue is currently enjoying a 90% as part of the Steam summer sale. You can grab the lot for $74.99 / £55.

Grand strategy Europa Universalis III is now swollen to the point of popping with four (count ‘em) expansions, and these are all to be bundled in a single thing called Europa Universalis III Chronicles. The new bundle will be out on the 22nd of March. Quite why RPS hasn’t spent more time focusing on this multifarious historical strategy, which allows you to control any nation in Europe between the end of the 14th century and the start of the 19th century, is a bit beyond me, so maybe now’s the time for that to happen.

Aaaaand there’s a trailer below.What have we learned from the lessons of history? Nuthin’ >>